Coupled Human-Natural Ecosystems

LTER Network Research Initiative IV Workshop

 

Workshop Organizer: Ann Kinzig

 

 

Empirical evidence strongly indicates that neither biophysical nor social systems operate in a simply additive manner. Under certain conditions interactions between patterns and processes in biophysical systems and among social groups in human systems give rise to emergent behaviors within each system. Non-linear interactions between biophysical and human systems further promote complex, system-level behaviors. Understanding the evolving linkages of coupled human-biophysical systems is thus critical to understanding the causes of stability or abrupt change in coupled biophysical-human systems.

 

LTER is poised to advance the understanding of coupled human-biophysical systems in several ways:  (1) the LTER program has a demonstrated record of quality research;  (2) the collection of sites in the network represents an important cross-section of key ecosystems in the US and polar regions; and (3) LTER science is recognized as an important source of information for policy decision making – in certain regions, LTER science has played a critical role in policy development and change.  Much of the current LTER research, however, is centered solely on ecological questions.  Few LTER sites conduct studies of human systems, and even fewer directly study coupled biophysical-human systems.  The ecological foundation of LTER science provides a solid, scientific basis for integrating human-systems science.  Transitioning the majority of LTER sites from an ecological to a coupled socio-ecological perspective, however, will require changes in the vision, culture, and practices of the LTER programs.  Achieving this transition will require careful planning.  Approaches for motivating interest in integrative social-ecological science and for actual integration must be initially developed to ensure the implementation and the long-term success of this transition. 

 

Identifying key components that should be addressed in a planning grant was the overall focus of the workshop.   We identified five general topics, formed as questions, that should help guide the development of a planning grant.  Four of these questions were addressed by sub-groups during the workshop.

 

 

 

1)  How should the planning process be organized to generate new questions, and to move to products?

 

General issues to consider in the planning process. 

 

Central to the planning process should be the long-term vision of achieving integration of social and natural sciences.  Performing coupled social-ecological research will require building a new culture, and this will take time.  The planning process should take into account both short-term and long-term strategies to foster the development of this culture.  

 

It will be imperative to increase the representation of social scientists that are interested in interacting with natural scientists on LTER projects.  Approaches should be employed to generate a critical mass of interested social scientists, to generate an understanding among ecologists of the integrative potential with social science, and ultimately, to generate shared synthetic research questions.

 

Suggested components of a planning grant are outlined below:

 

I.                 Evaluate existing integrations

A.              Interview social scientists, PI’s

B.              Evaluate success, limitations

C.              Beyond the LTER network

1.               ILTER

2.               Biocomplexity projects

3.               IGERT program

4.               Social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) directorate centers

 

II.               Activities

A.              Lecture series on coupled social-ecological systems

1.               University wide/site wide

2.               Broadly advertised, including targeted invitations

3.               Intentionally cross disciplinary

 

B.              Workshops on coupled social-ecological systems

1.               Goals:

a.                To get groups together, build trust, practice communication across disciplines, develop a shared culture.

b.               Expose the different LTER to how others in and out of the network are working on interdisciplinary syntheses.

c.                Treat as a visiting circus to build and maintain excitement.  Keep the ideas and opportunities in the front of people’s minds

d.               Broaden awareness of cross disciplinary work of the LTER to the entire ecological world

(1)            develop a pool of potential reviewers

 

2.               Mechanisms

a.                0.5 day to encourage all groups to learn more before having to commit a lot of time.

b.               Longer and recurring workshops to build trust, communication

c.                Provide invitations, especially to the longer workshops, so that there is some prestige in attending and help to get around the stumbling block of different reward systems.

d.               Hire a social scientist that understands and supports the goal of integration.  This person would work out of the network office and facilitate the workshops, and communications among participants even after the event.

 

3.               Marketing

a.                Give it a prestigious, recognizable name

b.               Invitation helps the junior faculty, for their CV, etc.

c.                Make it a special and well advertised event

d.               Identifiable in the professional communities

 

C.              Fellowships for social scientists

1.               Named and recognizable as prestigious

2.               Funded to interact with different sites

3.               Rotate by discipline and region of the country

 

D.              Social scientist hired in the network office

1.               Rotating person

2.               Help infuse the entire process with a social science perspective – change the culture at the network office level.

3.               Travel to sites and interact with collaborative teams (BUT sites produce the vision for the social-ecological synthesis and implementation of new research.  Not top down from this officer).

 

E.               Focus groups

1.               Survey the field. Provide participant support costs, or stipend to a pool of social scientists that can get together and assess

a.                Why they are not involved?

b.               What are the barriers to being involved?

c.                What do they need, as a discipline with a different reward structure, to be involved?

 

III.             Products – reflect the activities above

A.              Special issue of a journal or an edited volume

1.               Collaborative papers/chapters

2.               Do this at the end of the first planning year to kick the integration into the next phase. 

3.               Do this again periodically to keep the greater community aware of steady progress on the integration

4.               Submit to a suite of disciplinary journal

 

B.              Series of workshops/lectures

1.               Take the show on the road

2.               Use these to illustrate the synthetic questions that have been develop

 

C.              Exchange visits to professional society meetings

1.               Societies cover cost of cross discipline participants

2.               Participate in panels and symposia

 

D.              Semester long fellowships (post-doctoral and faculty)

1.               Work to affect culture of an individual department

 

E.               Social science officer in network office

1.               Discretionary funds to realize a vision and make the position attractive to potential candidates.

 

IV.            Marketing strategies

A.              Give the activities and fellowships a prestigious, recognizable name

 

 

 

2)  What can be done to facilitate the evolution of this transition?

 

Developing a common culture among the biophysical and human-system disciplines is essential!  Processes leading to advances in the development of this culture, the language used or required to make these advances, and the research questions that emerge during these processes are important information that should be readily shared among sites.  This sharing of information will expedite the overall progression of the LTER network toward coupled-systems research.  To facilitate information sharing, it is recommended that the planning process draws on the ecoinformatics tools presently developed by the SEEK project (Science Environment for Ecological Knowledge).  The SEEK tools are computer programs based on linguistic theory to translate, compare, organize, and store concepts, terms, semantics, and norms from languages and cultures from different disciplines.  These tools allow for the creating of a common language (i.e., culture) to enhance communication between scientists, scientific disciplines, data sets, and models.  The LTER network is already involved with SEEK.

 

 

 

3)  What are some examples of initial research questions?

 

A couple of big questions that got both the social and natural scientists 'jumping out of their pants' were identified. These were:

 

1. What is at risk?

2. What is the relevance of the past to living in the future?

 

Additionally, questions identified by the LTER Executive and Coordinating Committees (and which we endorse) include:

 

3.  What have been the legacies of agricultural practices and other land uses for the ecological systems being studied in the LTER network?  Conversely, what have been the legacies of the different ecological systems for agricultural practices and other land uses in their respective regions?

 

4.  What are the human issues that affect the biosphere and its management?

 

5.  What are the social, economic, and political factors that influence continental-scale ecological patterns and processes?

 

6.  What are the social, economic, political, and ecological factors that affect the adoption of sustainable land-use practices?

 

 

Several factors contributed to the successful and fun discussion of this question: the use of metaphors and the trashing of metaphors, common theories, self-selected group, and avoiding the use of jargon.

 

Discussions also illustrated some common theoretical ground between the social and ecological scientists: resource efficiencies, path dependency, and hierarchy theory.  These concepts may serve as starting points for discussions among social-biophysical scientists.

 

The word 'practice' was useful for describing what we were doing.  It lets us lower the stakes, and relax and enjoy brainstorming.  We practice science as experts and we practice in order to improve our performance at new things.

 

 

 

4)     How can stakeholders be engaged in the planning process? [Group report missing; to be filed later]

 

 

 

 

5)  What about sites not ready to make the transition? This is partially addressed in question 1 above. The planning grant needs to address several time horizons if it is to inculcate interdisciplinary thinking (across the social and natural sciences) in the majority of LTER sites. Some sites are already advancing in social-ecological research, others have developed the working relationships and cultures needed to advance and would benefit from resources, still others must begin developing common questions and shared languages before they can begin. These latter sites need to receive as much attention in the planning process as those that can give an early demonstration of the successes that can derive from research in coupled social-ecological systems.

Attendees (in seating order)

Denise Lach

Martin Robards (sp?)

Matthew Wilson

Mary Cadenasso

Steward Pickett

Bill Provencher

Curtis Monger

Terry Chapin

Leslie Tose

Jeffrey Turk

Kris Gade

Amy Lovecraft

Jennifer Fraterrigo

Harry Chabwela

Dan Childers

Phil Robertson

Larry Baker

Jeff Hepinstall

Goh Henschel

David Foster

Fred Swanson

Deanna Scadden

Alan Covich

Lauren Kuby

Brenda Shears

Charles Redman

Elinor Ostrom

Craig Harris

Nicole Czarnomski

Corey Lawrence

John O’Keefe

Liz Levitt

Anthony Tannarell

Ann Krause

Tom Baerwald

Rod Keenan

Roel Boumans

Jim Allaway

Steven Hamburg

Paige Warren

Madhusudan Katti

Manuel Maass

Audrey Barker Plotkin

Deana Pennington

Bill Freudenburg

Steve Carpenter

Anita Guerrini

Gail Osherenko

Ann Kinzig

Steve Garman